Sri Lanka's Wickremesinghe Voted in As Next President

Sri Lankan lawmakers voted acting President Ranil Wickremesinghe as the new president on Wednesday, hoping he would pull the country out of a crippling economic and political crisis, reports Reuters.

"Ranil Wickremesinghe has been elected as the eighth executive president under the constitution," the secretary general of parliament said after counting finished.

The win for Wickremesinghe, opposed by many ordinary Sri Lankans, could lead to more demonstrations by people furious with the ruling elite after months of severe shortages of fuel, food and medicines, several protesters have said.

The other main candidate, ruling party lawmaker Dullas Alahapperuma, was more acceptable to the protesters and the opposition but did not have any top-level governance experience in a country with barely any dollars for imports and desperately in need of an IMF bailout.

The 225-member parliament gave 134 votes to Wickremesinghe and 82 to Alahapperuma. A third candidate, Anura Kumara Dissanayaka, got just three votes.

Earlier, outside the parliament, hundreds of heavily armed troops and police stood guard, but there were no signs of demonstrators.

Months of demonstrations over an unprecedented economic crisis culminated in Rajapaksa announcing his resignation from Singapore last week, days after troops rescued the leader from his besieged compound.

His departure wounds a once-powerful ruling clan that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for most of the past two decades, after his brothers also quit their posts as premier and finance minister earlier this year.

As acting president, Wickremesinghe has extended a state of emergency that gives police and security forces sweeping powers, and last week he ordered troops to evict protesters from state buildings they had occupied.

An opposition MP said Wickremesinghe's hardline stance against demonstrators was going down well with MPs who had been at the receiving end of mob violence, and most SLPP legislators would side with him.

"Ranil is emerging as the law-and-order candidate," Tamil MP Dharmalingam Sithadthan told AFP ahead of the ballot.

Political analyst Kusal Perera agreed Wickremesinghe had a "slight advantage", despite his own party securing just one seat at the August 2020 elections. 

"Ranil has regained the acceptance of the urban middle classes by restoring some of the supplies like gas and he has already cleared government buildings showing his firmness," Perera said.

The contest appeared to be close as lobbying intensified ahead of the vote. Two smaller parties pledged their support to Wickremesinghe's main challenger, Dullas Alahapperuma, while a Tamil party with two votes said they were switching sides to support Wickremesinghe.

Observers believe that Wickremesinghe will crack down hard and the demonstrators -- who have also been demanding his resignation, accusing him of protecting the Rajapaksas' interests -- take to the streets.

Former president Mahinda Rajapaksa, the deposed Gotabaya's elder brother and head of the clan that has dominated Sri Lankan politics for years, remains in the country, and party sources said he was pressing SLPP legislators to support Wickremesinghe.

The new leader will be in office for the balance of Rajapaksa's term, which runs until November 2024.

Wickremesinghe is expected to name public administration minister Dinesh Gunawardena, 73, his schoolmate and a strong Rajapaksa loyalist, as the new prime minister.